Wednesday, 30 November 2016

Tuesday, 29 November 2016

First real frost of this Autumn, almost clear sky so the only things to show any colour at Sunrise this morning were the contrails of commercial aircraft:

Recently I have been watching a series of TV programmes about UFO sightings which reminded me of my only experience of something I couldn't explain. Many years ago while driving home along the back roads at night during a thunderstorm I saw an orange coloured ball some distance ahead hovering maybe 50 feet above the ground. It seemed to stay in the same place for a while and then quickly rose straight up and eventually vanished. I've always assumed it was some phenomenon connected with the electrical storm. Maybe an electrically charged ball of plasma. Reports of these being spotted have occasionally been mentioned. Who knows, but I can imagine some would have put it down to a sighting of an alien craft.

Friday, 11 November 2016

It's a while since I spotted a Grey Squirrel at the feeders.
I don't think this is the same one which visited several times earlier in the year. That one had a very distinctive large bald spot half way along its tail. It is possible the fur re-grew if it has been changing its coat for the Winter. Not sure whether it has a cast over its left eye or whether that was just the way the IR lights were reflected:

Saturday, 5 November 2016

Fortunately there has been enough Sunlight and heat these past few days for the first of my Lithops (Living Stones) with white flowers to come in to bloom:

I wonder whether there are any with red flowers. Certainly haven't seen any advertised. What I have done is to buy some seeds of a couple of Lithops varieties I have not seen for sale as mature plants. Not tried growing them from seed before so we shall see what we shall see.

Robin Investigates
I was in and out the back door so I had left it open. As I came back in I heard a suspicious rustling sound. On investigation I spotted a Robin disappearing in my bedroom. It had flown in the conservatory, through the kitchen, along the passage, in the living room and then to the bedroom. I shut the living room door to block that escape route and keep Penny out of the way. Opened the front door, which opens from the living room. Crawled in the bedroom on all fours so as to get past the Robin so it could fly over me back to the living room. Of course it went past the open front door to the other end of the room so more crawling to persuade it to fly in the right direction. Fortunately it did and flew out of the door. Phew!
Why not open the bedroom window? I have net curtains which would have to be moved, window unlocked, etc. which could have panicked the bird more than me slowly moving around. The Robin didn't seem at all upset but just flew generally in the direction I wanted and an open door was a larger target for it to aim for.

Friday, 4 November 2016

Just arrived home from our afternoon walkies when I heard the unmistakeable sound of geese. As my garden is surrounded by high trees with just a few gaps I waited patiently so see whether they would come in to view. Whilst waiting I took the pocket Nikon out to try my first attempt at any sort of bird flight shot with it. As it is auto focus only and will not take a photo unless it thinks it is in focus I didn't hold out much hopes, especially when trying to get a distant subject in view on the LCD screen. The geese weren't very loud and I only expected to see the usual group of half a dozen or so. Unfortunately while they initially appeared to be heading towards me the group suddenly turned to the North going away from me but did at least come in view long enough for a couple of shots at maximum zoom:

Too far away to identify which type of geese but pleased to get the first flight shots of any sort with the Nikon. BTW if I had been guessing at the total number I would have said 30 or so but a quick count showed there to be over 50 birds in this group.

Thursday, 3 November 2016

There is a heating element built in the bottom of the tray which is controlled by some electronics which switch on when the temperature drops below 10C and off again when it rises above 12C. I switched that on a couple of days ago as yesterday saw the first frost of Autumn followed by another this morning :

There are a couple of Lithops with white flowers trying to bloom. I just hope we get enough Sunlight to encourage them to open. To give an idea of size - the Lithops plants are in 2inch (50mm) pots.